In today's omnichannel marketing era, to adapt to new changes in consumer structure and consumption patterns, flexibly respond to rapid changes in consumer demand and scenarios, and continuously improve brand market service levels and consumer service capabilities, more and more baijiu enterprises are seeking ways to build a safer, more stable, and smarter supply chain fulfillment system.
How can the supply chain be transformed and upgraded to cope with the changing market environment and channel reforms? It is important to note that it is almost impossible for a single brand enterprise to build a large-scale, even nationwide smart logistics system. So, what problems need to be solved in the baijiu industry supply chain? And where is the path to solving these problems?
01 The Pain Points of the Baijiu Supply Chain
When mentioning the baijiu industry or enterprises, what comes to mind? In the eyes of many FMCG professionals, baijiu, especially premium baijiu, seems like an easy business: compared to other FMCG products, it has no shelf life, no worries about expiration, high value, and large profit margins... Especially in recent years, the performance of major famous baijiu enterprises has been enviable.
In the era of omnichannel marketing, facing such a dramatically changing Chinese market and rapidly upgrading consumer groups, baijiu enterprises actually face many challenges as well, the most obvious being warehousing and logistics issues.
From the sales model perspective, baijiu sales models mainly include distribution, supermarket, hotel, and direct sales, with the distribution model still being the most mainstream. The traditional supply chain system of the baijiu industry has evolved based on this sales model.
Baijiu is different from ordinary FMCG products; the mainstream price range of the entire industry spans from a few yuan to several thousand yuan. Therefore, baijiu brands often have many SKUs covering other price points besides a few main products, ranging from dozens to hundreds or even thousands, with significant price differences. These products at different price points are suitable for different consumption scenarios and channel paths, leading to fragmented orders and a highly dispersed and complex supply chain system.
In addition to order fragmentation, there are many problems in the delivery process from the distillery to the consumer. First, as a high-alcohol beverage, baijiu is flammable and explosive, requiring higher warehousing standards; second, baijiu distribution is regionally strong, with possible policy differences across regions and opaque market information, leading to persistent channel crossing by some distributors and endless counterfeits.
Terminal transportation and delivery also rely on teams built by distributors; coupled with obvious peak and off-peak seasons, warehouse utilization is low, and channel-level capital and inventory pressure is enormous. Once unexpected situations like the pandemic cause inventory backlog and capital strain, price chaos can easily occur, significantly impacting the brand.
Baijiu enterprises may seem to make money easily and abundantly, but in reality, facing the omnichannel market, the baijiu supply chain system is overall too traditional, not sufficiently complete or intelligent. Warehouses are hard to find, operation and maintenance costs are high; the cost of managing channel crossing and anti-counterfeiting remains high; information is disconnected, making it impossible to have timely and clear insights into channel inventory, thus unable to formulate reasonable marketing policies; delivery experience is also uneven...
02 Building a Resilient, Flexible, and Risk-Resistant Supply Chain: A Must for Baijiu Enterprises
Nowadays, baijiu enterprises are gradually paying attention to digitalization. Most enterprises have introduced third-party service providers to digitally upgrade their marketing management systems, but for the more core channel supply chain, progress has been slow due to the sales model.
Clearly, those national leading enterprises in the baijiu industry, although more traditional in their brewing philosophy, are also clearly aware of the importance of a professional, intelligent, and digital supply chain system.
For example, Jiannanchun, a typical representative of high-end baijiu in China, has partnered with Annto Logistics to build its first smart logistics center - the South China Smart Logistics Center, which was officially launched recently. The implementation of this project will provide efficiency support for the enterprise's operations and management, helping it better adapt to industry changes and business growth needs.
In recent years, Xiaohutuxian Liquor has also partnered with Annto Logistics to promote innovative supply chain models such as omnichannel one-warehouse and e-commerce warehousing and distribution integration, establishing a full-value-chain operational indicator monitoring system to support the enterprise's new growth under omnichannel through supply chain upgrades.
Why choose Annto Logistics?
First, Annto Logistics has over 5 million square meters of various high-standard warehouses nationwide, with mature delivery routes covering 99.1% of townships. These two points alone can provide significant help to baijiu enterprises, quickly matching warehouse resources across regions and flexibly meeting storage needs of different sizes in peak and off-peak seasons.
Second, by establishing an efficient collaborative logistics network across all channels and the entire chain, Annto Logistics has achieved "end-to-end" digital intelligence, building strong core operational capabilities and product management capabilities. Through full-chain data collection and informatization, it achieves more efficient and controllable process execution, whether it's the connection of people/goods/vehicles/places or the intelligent management and decision-making of the integration of orders/information/logistics.
Additionally, Annto Logistics' online-offline one-warehouse supply chain solution can help enterprises improve omnichannel delivery efficiency and satisfaction, optimize warehousing costs, and reduce channel crossing.
In terms of logistics and delivery, Annto Logistics can also achieve more efficient services. Through intelligent systems combined with professional warehousing and distribution teams, it scientifically allocates transportation and delivery resources, greatly enhancing the controllability of transportation management and risk control capabilities. It is understood that Annto Logistics can achieve 24-hour delivery within 300 kilometers, which is the most direct reflection of its service delivery efficiency.
03 Obtaining Information and Liberating Distributors: The Greatest Value of Smart Logistics
Beyond professional warehousing and delivery services, Annto Logistics actually brings more to enterprises. In my opinion, while these services are crucial, they are only the basics, still at the level of cost reduction and efficiency improvement.
In today's highly competitive consumer goods industry, enterprises often face stock competition and need to find more "incremental" opportunities for better development.
Obtaining information, knowing yourself and your enemy, is essential to win this war without gunpowder, but most enterprises focus on competitors while often neglecting their own information. For example, how many enterprises can confidently say they know their brand's channel inventory distribution like the back of their hand?
Visualization, configurability, and adaptability are three notable features of Annto Logistics' supply chain services. For example, given the high requirements of baijiu enterprises for warehousing and delivery, Annto Logistics has a dedicated service team that, based on 360-degree no-dead-angle monitoring warehouses and intelligently coordinated logistics systems, reports the in-transit status of products to the enterprise daily.
Of course, in actual cooperation, the information enterprises learn is far more than this. This information greatly helps enterprises understand their market situation and then strategically plan.
On the other hand, the main distribution channel for consumer goods enterprises, push-based sales, brings many problems. The main functions of distributors are to advance funds, distribute goods, deliver, and find customers. As a result, in delivery, order fulfillment cycles are long and cannot adapt to the need for rapid market response;
In inventory, the large storage area for finished goods leads to high inventory rental costs and low capital turnover efficiency, leaving little energy to respond to the enterprise's call for consumer cultivation and other brand-level marketing actions. Many distributors want to transform into operators as required by the enterprise, but they cannot spare the energy and resources to do so.
Brand market building requires continued investment in resources to create experiences and value, continuously connecting with C-end consumers. These all require costs. Only through supply chain transformation and upgrading can enterprises have sufficient cost space and an efficient supply chain to conduct user online reach and operations, ultimately achieving bC marketing channel integration and activating b-end stock with incremental growth.
Annto Logistics' "online-offline one-warehouse + bC integration" supply chain solution not only greatly shortens the logistics and delivery links for enterprises but also can undertake the entire warehousing and delivery process, liberating distributors' resources and energy to focus on marketing and services. This will greatly enhance the brand's market competitiveness.
04 Enterprises Need a Partner Who Understands Them Better
Not only baijiu enterprises, but any brand enterprise related to consumer goods, in today's omnichannel marketing, having a complete smart logistics system is of great help. Annto Logistics is currently providing smart logistics services to more than 3,000+ brand enterprises across various fields including general FMCG, home appliances, home furnishings, and 3C digital products, making it a true leader among third-party logistics service providers.
The reason so many enterprises from various industries choose Annto Logistics, besides the reassuring professional service capabilities and large-scale investment in hardware infrastructure, is another point that many enterprises value: Annto Logistics understands the client side better.
As is well known, Annto Logistics is a core member of Midea Group's industrial digitalization landscape. It has accompanied Midea through the era when offline channels dominated, the rapidly developing e-commerce era, and is now entering the flourishing omnichannel era. Therefore, its accumulated channel transformation experience can precisely support FMCG enterprises in their omnichannel transformation and upgrading.
Throughout the complete business cycle, Annto Logistics has seen more problems from the brand owner's perspective and accumulated rich practical experience. Having originated from the "client side," Annto Logistics, when serving customers, understands how to view problems from the client's perspective and consider more comprehensive smart logistics solutions for the client. This is why more and more enterprises are choosing to let professionals do professional work and partnering with Annto Logistics to build their own smart logistics systems.